Have you ever had a conversation like this?
Recently, my son and I rode together to WaWa to buy a cup of coffee. During the ride to and from the store, we struck up a conversation. During that conversation, my son repeatedly interrupted me when I was speaking. When we were almost home, I tried to complete a thought and that's when the conversation ended like this:
Son: “Dad, you interrupted me.”
Dad: “Well, I wanted an opportunity to make a point.”
Son: “Well, I’m not going to talk to you if you interrupt me.”
Dad: “Ok, Son. I’m sorry I interrupted you. I’ll listen to you.”
Son: “Too late, I’m not interested in having this conversation anymore.”
Dad: “Well, I'd still like to make my point.”
Son: “That’s a shame.”
…and that’s why we didn't spend more time together as a family that day.. Because my blood was boiling. I needed a mental health break for 24 hours because I don’t bounce back from that kind of personal rejection like I did when I was younger.
Why is my blood boiling?
I’m actually not demanding or expecting any kind of special respect because I’m older or an elder.
But on the other hand, I’m also not going to allow myself to be a victim of ageism. It may not seem like a very big deal. But whether my son was doing it purposely or ignorantly, he was acting like an ageist.
There is a certain discrimination when a young person stereotypically dismisses an older person in a demeaning way that they would never do to one of their peers.
Please don't demean me, ignore me, discount me, and deny me a place at the conversational table because you dismiss me like a has-been old man. That is called ageism and that is called being an ageist. And just like racism and misogyny, etc., it is deeply rooted in a person’s character because of their foundational worldview that they share with other people that have been subjected to similar worldview indoctrination.
Unfortunately, almost every young person is an ageist to a certain degree, because the education system has purposely indoctrinated them to discount the wisdom of older Americans as part of the plot to move humanity much quicker in the direction that the “elites” have decided.
There was a time when the collective wisdom of the millennia was passed down from generation to generation, and the wisdom grew with each generation that built on the accumulated wisdom of the generations that preceded them.
But starting in the 1700’s and moving forward, a few influential people like Marquis de Sade, Lyell, Darwin, Marx, Engels, Dewey, Nietzsche, Foucault, etc. polluted the concept of humanity. They wanted humanity to go in a direction at odds with the wisdom of the millennia. They spawned groups like the Fabian Society and many others that to this day have actively endeavored to install systems that are counter to historical wisdom. They purposely controlled the American public-school system with the stipulated goal of separating children from the wisdom of the past so that they could transform them more rapidly into a New World Order of their design.
Hitler’s said, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” This concept was not unique to Hitler but was also forcefully implemented in every mass-murdering regime of the 1900’s from the Bolsheviks to the Nazis to Mao Zedong to the Khmer Rouge. And the concept is alive and well in America today. Except they don’t have to kill millions of people to own the culture, because the youth are already owned through carefully orchestrated and imposed educational and cultural indoctrination.
But don’t be fooled. It is rapidly becoming every bit as dangerous to oppose the marching orders of the postmodernist elites as it was to oppose the murderous regimes of the previous century.
The English vocabulary morphs on a daily basis such that previously innocuous English words become taboo overnight, and all speech is expected to conform to progressive marching orders. People that refuse to march in lockstep with the latest postmodernist decrees are instantly labeled as bigots, racists, or “phobes” of various sorts
Foundations directed by super-wealthy elites fund the movements and indoctrination. Schools and universities preach the new gospels. The media supports and propagates the decrees. Politicians officiate. NGO’s get funded and implement the worldview. World governing bodies impose strong-arm adherence down the row through federal, state, county, and local government bodies. In the end, personal compliance is the only option.
Unfortunately, the American system of education has thus delivered us into a period in which the youth (and now even middle-aged and older adults) have incorporated systemic bias into their thinking. They don’t even realize that they think that way.
It is said that intelligence is learning from your mistakes, but wisdom is learning from others’ mistakes. It used to be that children would sit for hours and listen to the wisdom of grandparents and absorb stories, concepts, and life-lessons.
But due to the ageist indoctrination of the American education system, the youth no longer have interest in such things. The youth will sit for hours with each other and pontificate about their direction and how the world should spin, but they do so in a vacuum. It is like having a conversation about transportation but ignoring the prior understanding of the wheel.
It is sad that young people today will witness their parents and grandparents pass away without ever asking them what it was like to fight in the war, or what it was like before computers, cell phones, and maybe even TV.
They will never understand the struggles of survival and the spirit of overcoming obstacles and the building of the country. They will never fully understand the real concept of family value. Rather, they will quickly excuse themselves from lengthy interactions with “old people” so they can listen to music, play on cell phones, and hang out with their equally ageist friends.
Historically, human beings became patriarchs and matriarchs in their mature years, and they became the respected and venerated repository of great wisdom. Their insight was sought out and their wisdom was engaged as each new rising group of young adults began to take on the greater responsibilities of guiding the culture.
Ageism is not a new phenomenon, but it is a relatively new phenomenon. Although it has a toehold in ancient Greece, the modern phenomenon is rooted in the “Enlightenment” and developments in the past few hundred years starting in colonial Europe. It took hold in the Fascist/Communist movements of the 1900’s, and the intentional indoctrination of Americans beginning in the Woodrow Wilson era, finally culminating in the postmodernist transformation of the 1960’s.
Since the 1960’s, America has been on a progressively accelerating course to the New World Order. Ideologies that previously would take decades to gather a foothold in American ideology now control the culture in just a few years, and sometimes even in just a single news cycle.
In fact, now that children have been successfully indoctrinated to embrace rapidly evolving progressive thought as a form of progress, they no longer need to take the time to assimilate to progressive transformations. Rather, they accept progressive transformation as rapidly as it is fed to them, because transformation itself is normative, and adherence to prior wisdom, even last week’s, is denigrated.
Unfortunately, since the 1960’s, three generations have now been indoctrinated in post-modernism. Actually, we are now beginning to indoctrinate the fourth generation since the 1960’s. Altogether that represents 91% of the population. Only people born prior to 1950 managed to largely escape educational post-modernist worldview indoctrination. And even if those people (over age 70) successfully escaped the indoctrination in their youth, they have been largely influenced by the culture over the past 50 years. Even an elder American who is acutely aware of the societal transformation would have to consciously work and strive on a daily basis to overcome the influence of such societal indoctrination in their own minds.
It is sad to say, but we are actually entering an era where the postmodernist transformation is largely complete. Even elder Americans are ageist now. Seniors now even discount each other as they blindly accept the New World Order as the guiding force in their lives.
So what are we to do?
Well, people that are discriminated against because of racism stand up against racism. People that are discriminated against because of their sex, religion, national origin, etc., stand up and call out that discrimination and refuse to allow themselves to be willing targets of systemic discrimination.
In a similar way, wise older Americans need to make their stand against ageism. We need to demand our proper place at the table. We must speak strongly and expect to be heard. We must not accept the fake concept of retirement and the concomitant demeaning, ignoring, discounting, and sidelining. After all, retirement is just another way of saying that you are being put out to pasture. As patriarchs and matriarchs, we may retire from careers; but we never retire from engaging and taking part in the culture or from relevance and being the repository of intergenerational wisdom.
I don’t know about you, but I for one will not be sidelined.
I would rather die than be put out to pasture.
I will remain active and influential.
I will continue to contribute.
And if they tell me I’m no longer relevant, I’ll be prepared to make my last stand.